Archive for October 2nd, 2008

I’ve always been a big fan of intelligent discourse on marketing. 

Way too often, marketing seems like 1 part mysticism, 2 parts voodoo, 2 parts common sense, and an extra-large dolop of B.S. People that think things through, explain the rationale behind things, and provide a framework for determining what’s good – and what’s bad – in marketing do our entire industry a service. 

One of the most influential (and dare I say brilliant) marketers is actual a family of marketers. The Ries family has been pioneering common sense in marketing for years, first with a series of books by Al Ries and Jack Trout, then with Al and his daughter Laura Ries Brown. Books like Positioning, Marketing Warfare, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, and The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR have altered the ways marketers think about their craft. I don’t necessarily agree with every position the famiy Ries stakes out, but I always find their work to be thought-provoking, and, more often than not, find myself agreeing with them. Read the rest of this entry »

As frequent readers of this blog (and it’s sister publication, Captain Digital Speaks! – www.captaindigital.net) I’m a big fan of commercials. Good commercials, that is. I don’t know if I’ve related this here, but my parents tell me that, as a toddler, I would run into the room for commercials, and leave the room when the shows came back on. That may sound weird, but not if you think about it for a second. Most national TV spots have the same production values, budgets, and talent as a 30 minute sitcom or in the cases of national brands, a one-hour drama.

Recently, I’ve seen a couple of spots that have been able to penetrate the general noise level and get my attention. They’ve done so, largely for a couple of reasons: Read the rest of this entry »